Hitherto, the interior of a refrigerator has been lighted with one, or two at the most, lamps or bulbs of small luminance secured to the innermost wall of the refrigerator to make the contents of the refrigerator visually recognizable.
Lighting of the interior of a refrigerator has to be made in such a way as to meet the requirements for better visibility inside the refrigerator and for improved working conditions or environment inside the refrigerator. More specifically, in regard to the first requirement, it is necessary that the lighting be done in such a way as to facilitate various kinds of work to be done in the refrigerator, e.g., finding of foods, putting foods into and out of the refrigerator, and reading of the labels on the foods, while avoiding dazzling. As to the second requirement, the lighting must be done in such a way as to give an impression that the foods as the contents of the refrigerator are colorful and appetizing, as well as an impression that the interior of the refrigerator is neat and clean. The type and location of the light source have to be selected to satisfy the above-described lighting requirements.
Conventionally, lighting inside a refrigerator relies upon a light source of a low luminance, e.g., a sewing machine lamp of 10 W or so, embedded in the innermost wall of the refrigerator, due to various restrictions in regard to arrangement of the cooling system and other components inside the refrigerator, as well as insulation of such system and components from the heat. Consequently, the known lighting system has posed problems such as dazzling, poor visibility of the foods and contents, difficulty in reading labels and giving impressions that the foods are not appetizing and the interior of the refrigerator is gloomy and dirty.
Usually, an illuminating lamp used in a refrigerator is partially or wholly made of a material having light-diffusing transmission characteristics, e.g., acrylic resin. In addition, no light is available for illuminating the inner wall surface of the refrigerator door, so that the shelves on the inner surface of the refrigerator door are completely in darkness when a room in which the refrigerator is installed is not lighted. The light from the aforesaid illuminating lamp is directed from the innermost end of the refrigerator towards the user, so that the interior of the refrigerator may be darkened when foods are disposed at such positions that they interrupt the light from the lamp. For these reasons, the users are often obliged to bring food out of the refrigerator to see it under an external lighting. Known lighting in the interior of refrigerator is not considered to enable the user to have any sense concerning the depth of-the refrigerator. In addition, the user's eyes inevitably see both the bright spot (illuminating lamp) and dark portions, so that the user tends to be dazzled and annoyed.
An object of the present invention is to ensure brightness of a level high enough to facilitate various kinds of work to be done inside a refrigerator, while avoiding dazzling of a light source and giving such impressions that the foods are colorful and appetizing and the interior of the refrigerator is neat and clean, thereby overcoming the above-described problems of the prior art.
Another object of the present invention is to make it possible to illuminate also the shelves on the inner surface of the refrigerator door, while providing lighting in good balance with the environmental brightness, thus further eliminating visual dazzling of the user.